diff --git a/src/agent_loop.py b/src/agent_loop.py
index 5a4d1dbd7..828cdae1d 100644
--- a/src/agent_loop.py
+++ b/src/agent_loop.py
@@ -2532,11 +2532,17 @@ async def stream_agent_loop(
                         )
                         logger.info(f"[tool-rag] Retrieved tools for query: {sorted(_relevant_tools - ALWAYS_AVAILABLE)}")
                     except asyncio.TimeoutError:
+                        # Leave _relevant_tools unset so the keyword fallback
+                        # below still runs. Hard-coding ALWAYS_AVAILABLE here
+                        # skipped the deterministic keyword hints whenever the
+                        # embedding backend was slow (e.g. a remote endpoint
+                        # cold-loading its model), silently stripping email/
+                        # calendar tools from queries that named them outright.
                         logger.warning(
-                            "[tool-rag] Retrieval exceeded %.1fs; falling back to always-available tools",
+                            "[tool-rag] Retrieval exceeded %.1fs; falling back to keyword tool selection",
                             _TOOL_SELECTION_TIMEOUT_SECONDS,
                         )
-                        _relevant_tools = set(ALWAYS_AVAILABLE)
+                        _relevant_tools = None
         except Exception as e:
             logger.warning(f"[tool-rag] Retrieval failed, using keyword fallback: {e}")
             _relevant_tools = None